Icon of the Trinity

THE ICON OF TRINITY BY Andrei Rublev

Famous painting by the Russian Medieval icon painter Andrei Rublev, called Icon of the Trinity. Andrei Tarkovsky made a film about his life, called The Passion of Andrei Rublev.

ANATOLY SOLONITSYN as Andrei Rublev in the film

Visually it has a lot of memorable sequences, which have stayed with me frame by frame. It is also full of long dialogue and monologue sequences of contemplation on life, existence, art and beauty. The one that hit me the most is the horse falling, which is slowed down and also the pagan ritual where nude men and women are running through the forest towards the river with lit torches.

The horse falling

The balloon sequence is the prologue to the film

The film is also famous for dividing the narrative structure into parts and following the artist's life in relation to the historical and social developments in Tzar's Russia.
It's shot entirely in black and white, but the end sequence is the brilliant part. It's a montage of details of this painting cut to a piece of music. The film here, dissolves from black and white to colour. Then you understand why he chose to make the film like that. To highlight the brilliance of the artist's work. Living a life of hardship and pain, and then creating beauty. I don't know if i'm describing it too well, but if you get hold of the movie (it is terribly long some 3hrs almost), try and sit through it till the end. The first time I saw it I had to constantly re engage with the film, because the takes are really really slow and long, but in the end it's worth it. You can almost smell the pigment!

And this is the man...You can check out more photos of him, at www.magnumphotos.com

Russian director ANDREI TARKOVSKY